Creating in Color: Podcast Review
What does a creative career really look like when you hear the story from the person who actually built it? In Creating in Color, creator and host Kaybe Woods gives BIPOC artists and creative professionals space to share the choices, challenges, pivots, and discoveries behind their work, opening listeners to careers and possibilities that are often less visible.
What is the Podcast About?
Creating in Color is a conversational podcast devoted to the stories and professional journeys of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color working across the creative world. Rather than presenting creativity as a single career path, the show moves through animation, illustration, writing, design, technology, production, entertainment, and other creative disciplines. Guests speak about how they entered their fields, what they learned along the way, and how their careers evolved, giving listeners a more realistic picture of what working creatively can actually involve.
The conversations frequently move beyond job titles into the experiences underneath them. Guests discuss breaking into competitive industries, developing portfolios, building professional relationships, managing creative teams, changing directions, learning new tools, advocating for themselves, and finding supportive communities. Episodes have featured professionals ranging from concept artists and 3D modelers to production coordinators, writers, directors, designers, and creative talent managers, making the podcast both a collection of personal stories and an informal guide to the many ways a creative life can take shape.
Podcast Details
Category: Arts
Frequency: Monthly
Starting Year: 2020
Language: English
Podcast Creator
Core Theme
At its heart, Creating in Color is about expanding the picture of what a creative career can be. Creativity is often represented through a narrow collection of highly visible roles, yet every film, game, television production, illustration project, advertisement, or digital experience depends on people doing dozens of different kinds of work. Through its guests, the podcast reveals this broader ecosystem. A listener may arrive knowing what an animator does and leave understanding the worlds of production coordination, concept development, talent management, art direction, rigging, post production, or another specialized field.
A second theme is that careers rarely develop in perfectly straight lines. Guests repeatedly describe experimentation, changing interests, unexpected opportunities, professional uncertainty, continued learning, and the importance of relationships. One person may begin in painting before moving toward storyboarding and eventually discover concept art. Another may move through several production roles before finding the work that fits best. The larger message is quietly encouraging: finding your place creatively is often less about knowing the entire path in advance and more about staying curious enough to recognize the next useful step.
Podcast Takeaways
Some key lessons from the Podcast:
- Creative careers are broader than they appear: The industries surrounding art, entertainment, animation, design, and technology contain many specialized roles that aspiring creatives may never encounter in school or mainstream career advice.
- Your first direction does not have to become your final one: Many creative professionals discover the right field by trying different disciplines, changing roles, and allowing experience to reshape their ambitions.
- Community can accelerate creative growth: Professional relationships, supportive peers, mentors, collaborators, and creative communities can provide knowledge and opportunities that are difficult to develop alone.
- Representation changes what people imagine is possible: Hearing BIPOC professionals speak openly about their work gives aspiring creatives examples of people building careers in spaces where they may not often see themselves represented.
- Technical ability is only part of a creative career: Communication, networking, self advocacy, teamwork, adaptability, and understanding production processes can matter just as much as artistic skill.
- A portfolio should communicate more than talent: Episodes exploring hiring, management, and studio work show the importance of presenting your abilities clearly and understanding what the people evaluating your work are actually looking for.
- Learning rarely stops once you become a professional: Guests continue exploring tools, techniques, technologies, and new creative disciplines, suggesting that curiosity remains one of the most valuable qualities in a long creative career.
Podcast Strengths
One of the greatest strengths of Creating in Color is its ability to make creative industries feel more accessible without pretending they are simple. Woods gives guests room to talk about how careers actually unfold, including the detours, uncertainty, practical decisions, and relationships behind professional success. The range of guests also prevents the show from presenting one definition of a creative life. Some episodes are highly career focused, others explore artistic practice, representation, technology, community, or the realities of production. Even conversations about specialized jobs tend to remain approachable because they are grounded in personal experience rather than industry jargon. The relaxed interview atmosphere further strengthens that effect, creating the feeling of listening to an experienced creative explain how their world really works rather than sitting through a formal career lecture.
Who This Podcast Is For
Creating in Color is especially valuable for artists, students, designers, animators, writers, filmmakers, illustrators, and other creative people who want a more realistic understanding of professional creative work. It may be particularly meaningful for BIPOC listeners looking for stories and perspectives from people building careers across industries where representation has historically been uneven. At the same time, the show has broader value for anyone curious about how creative careers are formed. People considering a career change, exploring animation or entertainment, building a portfolio, or simply wondering what happens behind the scenes of creative productions will find plenty to think about.
Why Should You Listen To This Podcast?
You should listen to Creating in Color if you want career insight that feels human rather than prescriptive. Instead of telling you there is one formula for becoming a successful creative, the podcast introduces you to people who found their way through different circumstances, disciplines, mistakes, opportunities, and transitions. That can be far more useful than another list of career rules. An episode might give you a practical portfolio insight, introduce you to a profession you did not know existed, change how you think about networking, or simply remind you that uncertainty is normal when building something creative. Over time, the collection of conversations becomes a compelling argument for staying curious about both your craft and the many forms a creative career can take.
Questions This Podcast Helps Us Explore
- How much of a meaningful creative career is discovered rather than deliberately planned?
- What opportunities become visible when we hear career stories from people whose experiences have historically received less attention?
- How can we recognize when changing direction is growth rather than giving up?
- What matters beyond talent when trying to build a sustainable life in a creative industry?
- How does seeing a wider range of creative professionals change what we believe is possible for our own work?
Concluding Thoughts
Creating in Color succeeds because it treats creative careers as lived experiences rather than polished success stories. Behind every title is a person who had to learn, experiment, adapt, meet people, make decisions, and continue developing. By bringing those experiences into conversation, Kaybe Woods gives listeners something more useful than a collection of impressive résumés. She gives them a window into the process of becoming.
That perspective can be especially powerful when you are still figuring out where your own interests belong. Sometimes progress begins not with a perfect plan but with discovering that a profession, path, or possibility exists at all. Creating in Color keeps opening those doors, one conversation at a time, reminding listeners that the creative world is considerably larger and more varied than it first appears.
→ You can listen to Creating in Color on Apple Podcasts and other leading platforms, or explore more at their website.
Chief Editor
Tal Gur is an impact-driven creator at heart. After trading his daily grind for a life of his own design, he spent a decade pursuing 100 life goals around the globe. Tal's journey and recent book, The Art of Fully Living, inspired him to found Elevate Society.
